Latest Husband Hill Stories

This 360-degree view, called the "McMurdo" panorama, comes from the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. From April through October 2006, Spirit has stayed on a small hill known as "Low Ridge."

If a human with perfect vision donned a spacesuit and stepped onto the martian surface, the view would be as clear as this sweeping panorama taken by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. That's because the rover's panoramic camera has the equivalent of 20-20 vision.

Spirit, the mountaineering rover that successfully scaled a Martian hill this summer, is searching for flatter ground. After two months at the summit of Husband Hill, the six-wheeled rover is making its descent toward a basin to the south where it will explore an outcrop dubbed "home plate" that looks like a baseball diamond from orbit.

Since arriving at the Columbia Hills, Spirit, one of the Mars Exploration Rovers, has encountered some mysterious phenomena. But the biggest mystery of the Columbia Hills may lie in the angled rock outcrops that Spirit has found in the vicinity of "Larry's Lookout" on Husband Hill.

The rovers Spirit and Opportunity have been exploring the surface of Mars for nearly a year. Principal investigator for the science package on the Mars Exploration Rovers, Steve Squyres, talks about the future of the Spirit rover and what has been learned so far from its exploration of Gusev Crater.

Word of the Day

pawl

A pivoted catch designed to fall into a notch on a ratchet wheel so as to allow movement in only one direction (e.g. on a windlass or in a clock mechanism), or alternatively to move the wheel in one direction.